This study examines access to, use of and management of land and its links with the root causes
of conflict in the two Kivu provinces and Ituri in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The
study’s aim is to identify key gaps in the international community’s understanding of land issues
in Eastern DRC, as well as gaps in the kinds of interventions that are being conducted at the
current time (2009-2010).
In the DRC, as in other countries, customary, informal and statutory land-tenure systems
“overlap” geographically, in the sense that a certain parcel of land might be claimed by different
actors under different systems. Individuals and sometimes communities may claim land through a
variety of systems simultaneously, resulting in confusion and dispute. Eastern DRC encompasses a
vast area and huge diversity in terms of geography, forms of local governance, ethnic composition,
and other aspects. However, while acknowledging this diversity, it is useful to identify two sets of
dichotomies, or “opposites”, which are of great significance across much of Eastern DRC: the dual
system of land access (customary and statutory) and the conceptual contrast between ethnic groups
which are “local” or “indigenous” to a particular area, and those which are seen as “migrants” or
“foreigners”. The weakness of the statutory land law, as well as widespread corruption, has led to
massive alienation of land held under custom. Customary leaders, who traditionally held the land
“in the name of their community”, have essentially privatised community properties, pocketing
the proceeds from alienated land which has been sold to wealthy and powerful individuals or
foreign and Congolese companies.
In the DRC, political representation at the local level is linked directly to “ethnic territories”. There
is therefore a structural link between claims to land ownership by ethnic communities, and claims to
political autonomy and power. Communities that have lacked local representation have long made
claims to land ownership in order to have their own chiefs, and these claims have often been resisted
by neighbouring communities. The result in many areas, particularly the east, has been violence.
Land is essential to most rural livelihoods, but it is also bound up very strongly with issues of “identity
and power”.1 While land scarcity and alienation of customary land has led to land disputes at the
micro-level, the tensions around such “local” and “intra-community” conflicts (or conflicts between
“ethnic citizens” and their chiefs who make decisions over community land) have generally been
transferred into the “inter-community” level. This has been achieved through discourses utilising
the concepts of “indigenous” and “immigrant” groups. For some communities, notably Hutu and
Tutsi, the issue of immigrant status is linked to an uncertain or contested right to citizenship. This
dynamic has led to widespread violence and the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) and
refugees – particularly those of Tutsi ethnicity – to parts of North Kivu in recent months and years
risks renewed violence unless it is handled very carefully.
In addition, control over land is a “sustaining factor” in conflict. Those individuals and cliques
that have benefitted from changes in control over land during conflict do not necessarily require a
continuation of war to maintain de facto control over their spoils. Rather, they need to avoid having
wartime transactions and population movements scrutinised and potentially undone, for example
through the establishment of land commissions, mediation processes, the return of IDPs and refugees,
or other state or non-state interventions. In order to avoid the loss of wartime gains, such actors will
likely attempt to gain influence with politicians or maintain a certain level of “instability” in order
to prevent international and local NGOs and state services from gaining a foothold in areas under
their control, and to prevent the return of those claiming land ownership.
Read more
No comments:
Post a Comment